(April 17, 2018 at 9:37 am)MysticKnight Wrote: I am saying the brain from a biological perspective doesn't know the details to give us the exact accurate objective value to who we are. I think both you and Jo agreed with that, just don't agree we have an objective exact value, which I argue later why I believe is not a good view.
Sorry, I tend to stop reading when I find stuff that needs addressing before any further ground is granted.
I'm already reading a book on Aristotelian metaphysics and feel myself losing braincells at each page, so I can't afford any for you.
What I may have agreed is that the neural pathways don't have the concept of value in them... but, as with most of our mental activities, on a highly abstracted way, they (some of them, at least) contribute to what we consider to be the attribute of value towards a particular thing, towards ourselves and towards other people.
I will agree that this highly abstracted mental state of value attribution is present in most humans, if not all. I agree that, as a society, we've come to agree, even if implicitly, upon some larger than zero value of any other human beings.
This societal agreement can be viewed, from the individual's point of view, as a value seemingly imposed by an outside influence. In other words, human value can seem to be objective; it can feel to be objective; it can feel like you have no choice upon the matter, as if it had been imposed unto you, unto me, unto everyone!
But has it really been imposed?
I think the example of money is a very good one, as it is one that is well known to be of human origin. There is no actual outer influence upon it, just humans.
Is the value of money imposed unto you, me and everyone? Or is it controlled almost imperceptibly by all of us?
Do we need a divine influence to account for "value"?
Or is our brain enough?
